Ashes and Ice Read online

  The wet blanket of heat attempts to suffocate us, but it’s all right. I like to run. The day won’t be so miserable after all. Don’t get me wrong, if there was a ball or stick involved in the running, I would be running in the other direction. Anything actually requiring equipment would demand just too much coordination. But today, it’s just the track and some running shoes. No one to count on, no one to bother me. We all gather around the starting point. The usual groups huddle together. Jocks take the lead.

  Jared slaps Dominic on the shoulder, “You may be good with a ball, but all you’re going to be seeing around this track is my ass.”

  “Oh really?” Dominic’s arches an eyebrow.

  “Oh yeah.” Jared smirks.

  “We’ll see.” Dominic pounds one fist into the other briefly enlarging the mass of his biceps. “I’m going to—”

  They could go on forever. I don’t really care. One will win. The other will be pissed off. Some obscenities will be exchanged. Then it will all start over tomorrow. I just want to run. Run like there is no one here. Run like all in front and behind me are the open pastures and the only competitor I have to race is the gold Arabian in the barn. Like I used to, like Dad used to. I breathe in steadily. In through my nose and out through my mouth.

  “All right. Ready. Set. Hey, hey. Julianne get up on the track. You can’t sit out.” Coach rolls his eyes as she mumbles about how unfair life is.

  “Okay. Go!” His whistle pierces the air.

  My feet are already moving. My breath falls in sync with the motion. One-two, one-two, one-two. Breathe. In-out. I picture the green hills of home and the oak trees that guard it. I round the first bend in the track. The wind whips my face as I pick up speed, offering some relief from the Louisiana sun. Everything feels even and balanced. It’s constant and steady—the pavement, the air in my lungs, the movement of my legs.

  I fly past the second bend, the third, and the fourth. I pick up momentum going around for my second lap. I’m on the outskirts of the group. The imaginary screensaver I have of the open pastures gives way to reality and I see ,as I’m coming to the end of the mile, Dominic and Jared are side by side in full-blown sprints a few yards in front of me. I can’t help but smile to myself. These guys are just full of BS. Seriously, if skinny ol’ me can come up so close behind them, how amazing are they? I push myself a little harder. I see the finish line, so close, and a little part of me would like it if Jared and Dominic could get a view of my backside for a change.

  My strides are more deliberate and the thud of my sneakers on the pavement sounds off in louder, faster intervals. The gap between us is closing. They are too engrossed in glaring at each other and panting to notice me coming up on the right. If I push a little harder, I can make it. Just a little harder. Just a little faster. Within three strides, I am right next to Jared. At first, he doesn’t notice. But then he looks at me with contempt, his eyebrows furrowed together, his eyes squinting. I almost hear the wheels churning in his brain: when did you get here?

  The finish line is only fifteen feet away. Ever so slowly, I pull in front of them. By one stride and then another. Am I actually going to make it? Am I actually going to beat Jared Wilson and Dominic Xavier? Me? Connor Devereaux? I can almost feel heaven open up and shower down its glory when it hits. A sharp blunt object nabs my shin and I feel myself tumbling forward, head-first. Pavement meets my forehead in a spasm of pain that ricochets from my head downward. The sun blinds me, but as I lift up my forehead, I can see Jared smirking back at me while crossing the red flag.

  He shrugs his shoulders and attempts a cartoonish depiction of innocence, “Oops. I’m sorry.”

  Dominic bellows out a laugh and high fives him.

  A few girls giggle, pointing their camera phones in my direction.

  Instead of getting up right away, I press my head into the gravel. It’s hot and doesn’t stop the throbbing, but it blocks out everyone else, at least for a moment. Coach Edmond nudges me with his shoe. “Ya okay, kid?” I sigh, dragging myself to my feet and nod. The unawesomess of me stares from the hushed whispers and whoops of laughter as I limp past them toward the locker rooms.

  The bump on my forehead continues to pulsate in small waves of pain. My earphones drown out the sounds around me. By lunch, my little face-planting incident, in all its very inglorious glory, is viral on the internet. Apparently, I have a couple thousand views, a few likes, and a comment page littered with “what a loser!” and “watch out, don’t trip, ass-wipe!” and “Jared strikes again! Hilarious, man!” As I walk to my table, some kids flag me and stuff their phones in my face while their own faces contort with soundless laughter. I push past and keep walking, unwilling to watch the replaying video. I remember it well enough. I absentmindedly brush the back of my fist to my forehead. Yeah, I remember it just fine.

  I sit down and turn up the volume on my IPod. I have the living dead across from me and some dude with headgear wheezing to my left. Only the two feet to my right are completely empty. All mine. I know no one is going to run over to claim my prized expanse of treasured cafeteria seat space, but I keep my book bag and sketchpad sprawled out across the table in case anyone tries.

  I feel someone behind me. I hear a faint “excuse me” over the beat of the music. I pretend not to hear. I know what they want. They need a place to sit. But this spot is all mine. Dammit. There are so many other places to sit and they have to choose right here? They must be a cross dresser with a peg leg to actually want to sit over here with the crooked-teeth, cat eyed, looser of the school. Which means I definitely don’t want to sit next to them.

  I slightly bob my head to the music to gesture I am too involved to actually attend to their needs right now. I can see the arm of the person behind me lift up to touch my shoulder. Good lord, can they not take a hint? But right before the intruder makes contact, his hand plops back to his side and he slowly walks away.

  The guy passes to my left. I exaggerate a look to the right. Maybe I was trying too hard to ignore him. Maybe it was too obvious. As I straighten my back, I can see a dark silhouette walking past the pillars and to the table isolated and lonely without a fan in sight. Is he really going to sit all the way over there? There are other places to sit. He’s going to die of heat stroke over there. A pang of guilt suddenly slaps me across the face. Why do I have to be a jerk? I could’ve shared my spot. He’s obviously too shy to sit anywhere else. I peer to my left and see who I rejected.

  From the back, I can see I turned down a girl, not a guy. She has black hair dangling to the middle of her back. She’s wearing long-sleeves, so, obviously, she’s crazy. She turns and I suddenly regret my antisocial behavior. She isn’t elegant or a bombshell, at least not by Hollywood standards. She’s beautiful in a way, demanding stares. Her skin is honey. She wears a fitted shirt that says, “The voices in my head don’t like you either” above a skirt poofing out over fishnet stockings and knee-high boots. Her slight, muscular form is blessed with killer hips. I swallow hard, tracing my eyes back up to her face.

  Just then, her eyes flutter up to meet mine. I choke on the bite of food in my mouth. Her eyes, a startling green, don’t look at all happy to see me. I snap my head forward, embarrassed she caught me staring. I hold my breath for a long moment. Her eyes are so beautiful and so very harsh. They are cold, brutal eyes and they glared right at me. Half of me thinks: Idiot, idiot, idiot! Beautiful, totally hot girl had her hand on my shoulder and I ignored her. I curse myself for missing a chance to have her sit next to me. The other half of me, though, is relieved. Somehow, I know eyes so sharp and penetrating could slice me open.

  I hunch forward, leaning my head on my palm. I think of spit up blood, black suits, roses, eulogies, and wet pillows. I think of lonely guitars, quiet houses, pointing fingers, and scraped foreheads. I think of falling and not wanting to get up. Yeah, her eyes could slice me open, but in so many ways, I’m already bleeding.

  Chapter 7

  Jade

  Blonde h
air, silver piercings.

  Smiles and curious looks.

  Bright lights flickering off.

  Heat.

  Cold.

  Cold, so cold.

  Blood, so much blood.

  A green street sign.

  Water drowning, ice freezing me.

  Screaming no one can hear.

  Tears never come.

  I wake up, my eyes lazily blinking open. Snippets of my dream nag at me; they always do. I reach for the flitting images, but they evaporate into nothing. I sigh, looking up at peeling floral wallpaper.

  I sit up in bed, pushing the quilt off me. My fingers trace the stitching along the outer seam. Nanan made it. She bubbled with pride when I said it was beautiful. Nanan. She is probably already downstairs, sitting at the table, newspaper in hand, news radio on, and piping hot coffee ready and waiting beside her grits. She’s predictable, but I like it. It was a week ago I woke up on the dock. I didn’t flinch away when she wrapped her robust, doughy arms around me. I melted into her, happy to leave the dock, happy to have the cold chased away with a warm body that didn’t let go. It wasn’t until we were off the dock and the cold was gone that I realized I didn’t let go of her either. I didn’t let go until we were home.

  I’ve only been living in this bedroom in the attic for a week now, but I’ve picked up her habits and find all her little quirky mannerisms—predictable and odd as they sometimes are—solid and comforting.

  7:00am. She is already listening to the radio, sipping on coffee, writing in a crossword puzzle. I don’t see her doing it, but I know she is.

  The radio alarm clicks onto the news broadcast.

  “Another victim of the Etcher was identified today in California…” I slap the radio off.

  The announcer’s words gouge into me. The red haired girl from my woods was pronounced a victim of the Etcher. The name crawls under my skin, grates against my bones.

  I shake my head as if that would disturb the thoughts enough to have them tumble off the shelf in my mind and shatter into a million pieces. I breathe in deeply, tasting the humidity. Swinging my legs over the side of my bed, my foot knocks over a stack of DVDs. I get out of bed and stack them, smiling as I look at the various titles in my hands and the dozens scattered throughout the room.

  Clara. She gave me smiles and memories. She gave me a place to stay and a stack of movies because she thought it was hilarious how I thought the images moving on the screen was magic. Nanan says I must be a movie fanatic, but really, I’ve been using Clara’s gift for research. Human behavior, interaction, the colloquialisms of current speech, technology. At first, it was overwhelming, but now, it feels like second nature. In the end, I did become a movie fanatic.

  I stand up, the DVDs now neatly piled. Pulling one of the t-shirts I picked out with Clara, my arms linger on the shirt, hugging it closer to me. She piled the clothes in my arms until I could barely see over the top of them. The topper to my tower of clothing was the pair of knee-high leather boots Clara, insisted I must have. She made fun of the cautious way I spoke. She laughed at how puzzled and confused I seemed with everything.

  I stuff my textbooks into my bag and peer out the window.

  I frown. There he is. The boy, the one who flickers every now and then with vivid color. I readily agreed to go to school when Nanan suggested it, because I saw a flicker of light around him when he ran by our house yesterday. I enrolled in school under the name Jade Smith and searched for him. When the bright green color flared up around him on the track, I gasped—my belly falling, my heartbeat… well, if I had a heartbeat it would have raced because, for that one short moment, the boy was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Then, the other boys had tripped him and his brilliant color sputtered away until nothing but a dull, gray haze whispered about him. I don’t know why I tried to approach him, why his fall and humiliation affected me so much. Why it hurt to see the strange green light that enveloped him fade into dingy gray, flickering like an extinguished flame.

  For the first time, I had approached a person and was blatantly rejected. I’m not sure why, but his snub sent wicked anger shooting through me. Violent, cold and ugly. I wanted the haze to drown him.

  It was just a flash.

  Just a moment.

  The bitterness of it lingers. I stare out at him, still frowning. He’s running again. A flutter of brown, red, and gray pulse around him for a moment before dissolving. I exhale loudly.

  I grab my bag and run down the stairs.

  “Hey, sweetness!” She calls out from the kitchen.

  “Hey Nanan.” I sneak a peek at the table. She’s holding the newspaper.

  “Did you hear…” She points to the radio, then over to the TV. “Another one killed.” She shakes her head, obviously willing the news not to be true—horrified by the reality of it.

  “Oh no.” I say, acting surprised even though I just heard the broadcast myself. I suddenly want to run out. I don’t like hearing about the murders, it prickles my skin, makes my fingers twitch, and clouds my mind.

  “I better go, Nanan. Don’t want to be late on my second day.”

  Nanan nods, but continues. “Some poor thing from San Fransisco…”

  I start for the door and, like a slap to the face, heat burns and I see it. The dream twisting into place, the scenes falling in order.

  I don’t have to look at the TV screen to see her face. I see her over a store cash register, a sly smile on her ruby lips. I see her easy laugh when I flinched as she turned the lights on in her apartment. I see her broken and bruised, glassy-eyed, next to a back-alley dumpster on a corner bearing a green sign for 24th street.

  Clara.

  I stumble backward and brace myself against the doorframe. I stare at the TV, breathing in deeply, hoping I am wrong, but her face flashes on the screen. Dizzying weakness slashes me apart. My chest spasms and I wonder if the heart can break even if you don’t have one.

  “Jade? Jade, dear, are you okay?”

  The air changes. Soothing cold eases its way into me and I stand up straight. My chest doesn’t ache, my breathing is even. I blink twice slowly, trying to refocus.

  I stare at the TV screen and, somehow, I don’t see memories and heartache, loss and shame. I see a girl, with too-blonde hair and ridiculous piercings. My fingers twitch.

  “Yes, Nanan. I am fine.” I walk out the door and I don’t look back.

  Chapter 8

  Connor

  I flinch at the door. Yeah, that’s right. I fail at subtlety and anything else remotely cool or socially acceptable. I stop at the classroom door’s threshold causing the few students behind me to pile up awkwardly like an ill-orchestrated game of dominoes.

  I hear a few unkind murmurs slip past the students’ lips in varying volumes and threat levels. But I seriously don’t care. I don’t care because she is there. Standing in the doorway, I stare past the entrance of Dante’s third circle of hell, otherwise known as English Composition, toward the girl hunched over a notepad, a black cascade of hair falling over one shoulder, sitting at a desk etched with a variety of pencil tattoos—a desk directly beside mine. The girl I rejected yesterday at lunch before cursing myself for the entirety of yesterday afternoon, evening, dreaming hours, and the miserable 4,089 steps to school this morning is sitting beside me. Glory to seating charts and Katherine McKenzie’s expulsion from Madisonville High for leaving that chair open and placing this black-haired goddess beside me. English Composition is awesome.

  After a long prayer of gratitude, marked by my dorkish staring, at the door, I make my way to my seat, nearly skipping, but not quite because dudes don’t skip. I slide into my seat, which scratches the linoleum, making an unfortunate, embarrassing sound. I clear my throat.

  No response.

  I drum my index fingers on the desk, trying to appear casual, nonchalant. But the beating sound seems to augment my nerves instead of soothe them. I can almost feel my chest pounding against my t-shirt and fear that the whole
classroom can hear its distinct and fast-paced bum-bums.

  The girl sighs.

  Does she hear it? I can’t see her face, but can almost see her eyes rolling and her mouthing “pathetic moron” with her perfect, full, pink lips. My heart beats faster. I am a pathetic moron. The bell still has not rung. A brave, rebellious soldier deep within me toys with the idea of apologizing about yesterday, introducing myself, striking up conversation, and impressing her with my wit and charm. When I remember that I have neither, I silence the deceitful bastard and continue sulking, wishing to be someone else—someone cooler, someone who isn’t completely and utterly terrified of taking chances, someone who could talk to this girl without fear of rejection.

  As if on cue, the king of hell—AKA Dominic—enters the classroom, flanked by his faithful minions, Jared and Phil. Damn it. Steroids and STDs ‘R’ Us have perfected the lazy/cool/confident stride I am attempting and I wish I could puke on them just so they would appear a bit less perfect.

  Jared abruptly stops beside me and drums his palms on my desk. “Everyone! Let me introduce you to our very own internet celebrity, Connor Devereaux!”

  I stare at him as Dom comes around and puts his hands on my shoulders.

  “What?” It’s all I can manage.

  “Oh, you didn’t see?” Phil takes out his cellphone and props it in front of me, his thumb poised over the play button.

  Before I know it, I see the video play out my demise on the track on Tuesday. At the end, the camera zoomed in and caught sight of my wet, glassy eyes. As soon as the video stops, the three guys roar in laughter. My eyes don’t move away from the screen, but travel down to the corner: 14,234 views. I sit back in my chair and swallow. I know I look like a loser, but I hadn’t quite grasped how utterly pathetic I looked.

  “Did you see his face? He was so gonna cry!” Jared’s voice hitches on bellows of laughter. Phil’s finger moves to the send button and a screen flashes announcing the video has been sent to all contacts. Within a few seconds, ringtones and vibrating cellphones announce a new message and, as my classmates check their phones, I hear a crescendo of giggles, whoops of laughter, as eyes and fingers point at me. The three guys slap my back as they move to the back of the class. I scoot down in my chair so my chest is barely above my desk. I want to disappear.